Oliver Glasner has said Manchester City being found guilty of arranging “sham contracts” has damaged the Premier League brand globally and believes the integrity of the English top flight is under threat. The Nottingham Forest head coach said the league faces a job to repair its image and suggested supporters might switch off after City were found to have artificially inflated their income by more than £900m. City have appealed against last week’s seismic judgment of an independent commission that they broke financial rules across a nine-year period.
If City’s appeal fails, the panel could determine a range of sporting sanctions, including expulsion from the league and point deductions. Glasner said the case must be finalised “as soon as possible” to protect the competition’s integrity. Glasner cited his experience of Crystal Palace being demoted from the Europa League at the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) last year for breaking Uefa’s multi-club ownership rules as an example of how legal processes can drag.
Then we got the final verdict 10 days before the Conference League started. There is still damage for the Premier League, not just in England. It’s a big topic all over the world, especially in Europe.
The most important thing is the integrity of the league because as soon as the fans can’t trust it, they won’t watch it any more.” Last week Aston Villa’s Unai Emery became the first Premier League manager to discuss the City case. Under [Pep] Guardiola, there were times when they were unmatched.” City deny wrongdoing and formally lodged an appeal last Thursday. We will continue to respect due process and are necessarily restricted in what we can say further until all proceedings are complete.”
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